


Crashing Down

by cyren2132



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Amputation, Gen, Hospitals, Mitchell Family, Plane Crash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-10
Updated: 2013-09-10
Packaged: 2017-12-26 06:00:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 988
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/962441
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cyren2132/pseuds/cyren2132
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cam's world came crashing down when he was 10 years old, and he knew nothing would ever be the same again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Crashing Down

**Author's Note:**

> Written for round 4 of the Stargate Last Author Standing challenge on livejournal in 2010. The prompt was "A character at 10 years old."

Cam's world came crashing down when he was 10 years old. His days, once filled with camping, Kansas basketball and Grandma's macaroons were now filled with extended stays from Aunt Emma, sleepless nights and the knowledge that life would never be the same again.

"Daddy's been in an accident," his mother said. Her voice wavered, and that, more than anything, sent shivers of terror down Cameron's spine. One thing had seemed a constant his entire life: His parents were the strongest people in the world. They feared nothing; they could do anything.

Except it wasn't true. His father -- who always said if it were meant to be in the air, he could keep it there -- was lying in a hospital bed because the plane he had been flying came hurtling back to the ground, and his mother could not contain her worry.

She took him to the hospital several times, but Cam couldn't make himself go into his father's room. He didn't want to see him that way. And no matter how many times he tried to convince himself that it was all an elaborate prank, and he'd step inside to see his father with a rubber glove blown up and stretched over his head like a chicken with a "Gotcha!" expression on his face, he couldn't. No matter how much he wanted to believe the military would swoop in with some top secret technology that would give his dad new legs that looked, felt and worked just like his old ones, he knew they wouldn't.

So instead Cam sat in the hall on a wooden bench and waited for his mother to come out of his father's room. Today she left him with a cola, a comic book and a brown bag of macaroons that hadn't tasted the same since the accident.

The bench started to make his backside ache while the light reflecting off the linoleum floor and the smell of antiseptic assaulted his eyes and nose.

Fortunately, he knew where to go.

There was a small chapel tucked in a corner on the first floor. Well, a sign on the door said it was a chapel, and indeed a simple cross sat on a table at the head of the room while a few small couches served as pews, but if the jackets, paperback novels and lunchbox detritus were anything to go by, the room hadn't been used as anything more than a spot for orderlies and janitors who didn't want to trudge halfway across the campus to their lockers on lunch and dinner breaks.

Cam liked this room. It was quiet and dim, and the burgundy carpet, though thin, felt soft beneath his feet. On a good day, he would eat his lunch and flip through the novels ranging from tales of the Old West to killer St. Bernards. Afterward, he would add his soda can to a pile that some artistic soul was slicing up in a half-finished attempt to create a majestic cross in shining blue, red and green before hurrying back to wait on his mother.

But today was different. Today he entered the chapel -- empty as usual -- and lowered himself into the first pew. Nothing made him feel better. Not the quiet, not the darkness, not anything. His eyes locked onto the cross at the front of the room. Why are you doing this?! he thought. He wanted to scream and yell and pray for things to be different, to go back to the way they were, but the words stuck in his throat.

His body shook with words and tears and a life that that wouldn't come. Squeezing his eyes closed, he stretched out across the couch and pressed his face against its scratchy upholstery, breathing in the scent of old cigarettes and long-ago spilled coffee. It calmed him, and minutes later he was on his feet and then back to his bench near his father's room. His mother was sitting there.

"Where were you?" she asked.

"Bathroom," Cam lied as took his seat next to her. She watched him for a moment before laying her hand on his head and smoothing his hair.

"Your father would like to see you," she said. Once again Cam found himself wanting to speak but lacking the words, his mouth opening and closing like a fish. "He really would, Cameron," his mother continued. "Please, just say hello."

Cam said nothing. She took his silence for agreement and stood, pulling him up with her. Gripping his brown bag tightly in his hands, he let her lead him into his father's room. Cam looked at the window, walls and the chairs before allowing his eyes to settle at the foot of the bed. His gaze traveled upward, following a blanket that was flat where it shouldn't be until he saw his father's legs -- wrongly short and rounded -- beneath the covers.

Cam's breath came quickly and he could feel unshed tears beginning to well up. He swallowed hard as he continued his search, finally landing on his father's face.

"Hey, Cam," his father said softly. Cameron's lip began to tremble and before he could eke out a shaky hello, his father dramatically sniffed the air, as he had numerous times before after a long day's work. "Do I smell Granny's macaroons?" he asked.

Cam ran forward and jumped onto the bed, wrapped his arms around his father and cried, shaking with each sob. His father held him tightly with the same strong arms that picked him up when he had fallen from a tree when he was 8 and had held him after nightmares. His mother came forward then, placing a slender hand on his shoulder.

"It's going to be okay," his father said. "It'll to take more than a plane crash to keep the Mitchells down."

And in that moment, Cam found peace. In that moment he realized that everything -- and nothing -- had changed.


End file.
